


i arise from dreams of thee

by mythpoetry



Series: Samifer Love Week 2016 [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Free To Be You and Me AU, Lucifer's terrifying inevitability, M/M, Sam Winchester's questionable coping mechanisms, of sorts, the fundamental paring down of Lucifer's argument as intensely rational and just, too many poetic references for this short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7724632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythpoetry/pseuds/mythpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam prays to Lucifer. (Un)fortunately, Lucifer can actually hear him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i arise from dreams of thee

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Samifer Love Week 2016

_Does Dean know?_

“Know what?” Sam asks. His face is buried in his pillow. Day old sweat, beer, the grime of barkeeping and tending. It’s not a collection of particularly pleasant smells but there’s a distinct lack of the bitter char of burned bone and incense, the desolate scrape of salt. A distinct lack of blood. Sam inhales deeply. Nothing is sweeter.

_That you talk to me this way_ , Lucifer says. _That you seek me out in prayer._

“You already know the answer to that,” Sam says.

_Not for sure. I told you. I’m not going to reach inside your head and clutch greedily at whatever I find_. A brush, a breeze, something feather soft grazing Sam’s forehead, like a phantom gently pushing away his hair _._ _I want you to_ tell _me._

“Why.”

_It’s sweeter,_ Lucifer breathes in his ear and Sam jolts up, wide awake, awake-like-he’s-been-struck-by-lightning awake, and his hands fist the sheets for a few seconds as he looks around wildly before he realizes that he’s truly alone, in his shitty rented room, bars of neon shining through the dirty window the only light. No angel, no devil. Just him and the dark. Slowly he lays back down, pillow flattened under his weight. Shuts his eyes. Tries to drift.

_Sam._

“Don’t do that again,” he whispers. “Don’t - blur things. I can’t deal with it.” He shifts, turns on his side. “If you do it again, I won’t call for you anymore.”

_I’m sorry_ _,_ Lucifer says, and it sounds sincere. But then, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting people to feel sorry for him, and didn’t Sam fall right into that trap? Didn’t he throw himself headfirst into it? Got down on his knees and opened his mouth. To _pray._

“Anyway,” Sam says. He doesn’t want to acknowledge an apology. “No, Dean doesn’t know. Dean and I, we’re not really talking right now.”

_Your brother is -_

“It’s _my_ fault,” Sam says harshly. “It’s my fault. Don’t say anything about Dean. Just shut up about him.”

_I was going to say he’s probably worried about you_ _,_ Lucifer murmurs. Sam feels something like a _stretch,_ in the air, like the fabric of the universe surrounding him just snagged on itself. Folded over.

He thinks it may have been Lucifer sighing.

“Something else,” he says. “Talk about anything else.”

_Settle in, then. Story time._

Sam can _feel_ him, sometimes, in his bones, in his throat. Lucifer’s presence, his grace. Liquid nitrogen spun around a burning star. A light so cold your fingers would turn black reaching for him. Something in the air around Sam, shimmering and serene. It was like that now. The room, the hum of electricity, the beat of Sam’s heart - all of it was fundamentally altered by an _other,_ a thorn in the meat of reality.

_Picture, if you can_ _,_ Lucifer says, _a_ _being of perfect virtue and morality. He is all you know. He is right and just and good. You love him with every molecule of your being. You sing in glory and light for him._

_He adorns you in his joy like emeralds, like rubies. You bathe in the sunlight of his love. You know you are a being of virtue yourself, for he has said so, and all the stars and all the waters and all the darkness is laid at the truth of his word. It is the law of the universe._

_You are a being of virtue, and one day he demands of you this: that you sacrifice yourself for the sake of the unvirtuous. It is a breach of justice, you tell him. You tell him you love him too much to bear it._

_For that you are ripped from your home and tormented for eternity._

Sam already knows this story. Lucifer tells it every night, with minute variations that Sam tries hopelessly to catch like falling water in his hands, only the water is crystal, only the crystal is starlight. And all light wants to do is burn.

_The end,_ Lucifer whispers in Sam’s ear, like he does every night, because Sam’s on his knees praying for him, in bed praying for him, praying for him between every breath and pause, praying for him between every drink and broken glass, because Sam calls and the devil comes, all cold fury and awe, because Sam _needs_ Lucifer, from his head down to the foul rag and bone shop of his heart, god forgive him, god help him, only - Sam knows he won’t.


End file.
